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You’re not alone if your distribution sales team struggles to hit numbers but is too busy to do more.
Even computer giant IBM struggled with sales at one point in its history. In his memoir, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?,” former CEO Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., details how he transformed IBM during an operational crisis marked by inefficiency, outdated practices and customer dissatisfaction. Gerstner’s story is not just about revamping processes — it’s about driving a cultural change that allowed IBM to thrive. I recommend the book to all distributors because it offers invaluable lessons on overcoming resistance to change, fostering a culture of innovation and leveraging technology to drive efficiency.
Inspired by Gerstner’s memoir and my own experience, here are some ideas for distributors looking to move beyond mere busyness to become truly productive and efficient through cultural transformation with the right CRM.
BUSYNESS IN THE ENEMY OF TRUE PRODUCTIVITY
My team recently visited Alan, a sales rep at an electrical distributor. Alan is highly dedicated to his work, managing 30 accounts but feeling overwhelmed. He admitted he couldn’t handle an additional 50 accounts and is already turning down business he feels he can’t manage effectively. This highlights a critical issue: Alan and his peers are held back by the company’s ingrained processes. As we spent the day with Alan, we noticed other sales reps at the company were facing the same challenges.
There is a cost to this kind of chronic busyness — not just for Alan and his peers — but for the business. If each sales rep can only manage 30 accounts effectively and the distributor has 1,000 customers, they need 33 sellers to handle the workload. Hiring, training and maintaining sales reps is costly for most distributors.
But what if the distributor streamlined their processes with the right CRM (customer relationship management system)? AI-powered CRM can dramatically increase each rep’s capacity. For example, if each rep started managing 50 accounts instead of 30, you’d need fewer employees to handle the same customer load. But it’s not about reducing your workforce. The right technology can free reps to engage in more revenue-driving activities, transforming gatherers (or order-takers) into hunters.
SLOWING DOWN TO SPEED UP SALES
A CRM can help distributor sales reps work more deliberately and precisely. Given that sales reps spend only about one-third of their time actually selling, a CRM can take over the busywork, freeing up your sales reps to sell. Start by finding out where your sales reps currently spend their time. Let’s go back to Alan for a moment. Every distributor should ask their version of Alan these questions:
● How much time do you spend preparing to serve each customer?
● Do you log into multiple systems, toggling back and forth to find answers to a customer’s question?
● Do you end up calling a colleague on another team to get customer or product information?
● Are you still working mainly with Excel spreadsheets?
● How long does it take you to get back to a customer when they have a question? What’s your process for getting them that information?
If your company doesn’t have a proper CRM centralizing information, your sales reps will be busy but not truly productive. Embracing a culture that prioritizes centralized, accessible information is key to true productivity and consultative selling.
As an outside sales rep, Alan should know when a customer service rep touches his account. He needs to know exactly what customers are discussing with his colleagues to provide the best customer experience. He should also know what to discuss with his customers to grow them without digging through reports or having to collaborate with a team of analysts.
When a CRM includes product data, reps can answer product questions on the fly without logging in and out of multiple systems. They can access specs, pricing and inventory information instantly, providing a better customer experience and speeding up the sales process. Alan shouldn’t have to spend his day playing phone tag with an inside sales rep or a customer service rep to get the information his customer needs. We see this happening often, and it’s not uncommon for outside sellers to tell us it takes them 24 hours to get back to customers because of the time they spend chasing their colleagues down for answers.
Your sellers shouldn’t be spending time on admin tasks, running and analyzing reports, researching customer histories, and getting up to speed. These manual activities keep Alan from doubling his customer base and force distributors to hire more reps than they really need.
HOW THE RIGHT CRM IMPROVES PRODUCTIVITY BY KILLING BUSYNESS
The right CRM can automate certain tasks so that they run as background processes. If your sales teams have to export the same spreadsheet or send the same email every day, it’s a sign that the task should be automated. Distributors can automate manual, repetitive tasks so sales reps spend more time selling.
Distributors can significantly increase their effectiveness by using a CRM. If the CRM is AI-powered, it will mine the distributor’s data (from the ERP) for insights so they don’t have to search through spreadsheets to figure out who to call and what to sell. This ensures that sales reps are targeting the right customers with the right products at the right time. One sales rep we talked to used to spend 15 minutes minimum to prep for each call. Let’s do the math:
8-hour workday ÷ 15 minutes of prep per call = 32 calls per day
If your sales reps don’t have to prep so much for each call because they are using AI-powered tools within the CRM, it frees them up to have deeper conversations and better understand their customers and their needs.
DRIVING A CULTURAL SHIFT WITH THE RIGHT CRM
Every business requires the right tools to do the job well. But investing in a CRM is only the first step. You need to drive a cultural shift toward continuous learning and adaptation:
● Train the team on the technology. If you want your sales reps to use the CRM, your success starts from the first introduction. Focus on the most compelling feature — the “what’s in it for them” hook — to get them engaged.
● Standardize processes across the entire sales team. Distributors who are the most successful with new technology have processes in place that technology can improve. Be clear about how you want the sales team to use the tools and your expectations. For instance, you might say, “We’ve given you a tool that will make it easy to prep for calls. We’re expecting you to make 50 calls per day.”
Gerstner said, “People don’t do what you expect but what you inspect.” While you must be prescriptive in your expectations with sales tasks, you need an accountability loop to ensure tasks are getting done.
IS YOUR TEAM BUSY WITH THE RIGHT ACTIVITIES OR BOGGED DOWN WITH INEFFICIENCY?
It’s time to think differently. Is your team's busyness driven by productive, revenue-generating tasks, or is it due to disorganized processes and manual work? Busy comes in different shapes and sizes, and not all of them help your business grow.
If you can embrace change, streamline processes and leverage technology like Gerstner did at IBM, you’ll see more than just accelerated sales. Your employees will be happier with more time for meaningful work, and your customers will enjoy a seamless buying experience.
